From bed + rock.

• (RP) IPA: /ˈbɛdrɒk/
• (America) IPA: /ˈbɛdˌrɑk/

bedrock

1. (uncountable, geology, mining, engineering, construction) The solid rock that exists at some depth below the ground surface. Bedrock is rock "in place", as opposed to material that has been transported from another location by weathering and erosion.
   • 1880, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XL, in A Tramp Abroad; […], Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company; London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC ↗:

     The denudation of the land was upon a grand scale. All superficial accumulations were swept away, and the bedrock was exposed.

   • 1912 October, Jack London, “The Stampede to Squaw Creek”, in Smoke Bellew, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co, →OCLC ↗:

     Listen! It's big. Only eight to twenty feet to bedrock. There won't be a claim that don't run to half a million.

2. (figurative) A basis or foundation.

   If culture is the bedrock of a society, then language is the cornerstone of culture.

   • 1918, H[enry] Rider Haggard, chapter VIII, in Love Eternal‎:

     Now, although like most young people, Godfrey was indolent and evasive of difficulties, fearful of facing troubles also, he had a bedrock of character.

• French: roche mère, soubassement
• German: anstehendes Gestein, Grundgestein, Muttergestein
• Portuguese: rocha-mãe
• Russian: коренная порода
• Spanish: roca madre, material rocoso

• German: Grundlage, Basis, Fundament

bedrock (bedrocks, present participle bedrocking; simple past and past participle bedrocked)

1. (transitive, figurative) To establish on a solid foundation.
   • 2011, Allen Tullos, Alabama Getaway: The Political Imaginary and the Heart of Dixie, page 128:

     Bedrocked in the formative race relations of the Heart of Dixie, the governor declined an invitation to the unveiling of artist Maya Lin's civil rights memorial in downtown Montgomery.